


Fireside

by M_arahuyo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A post-Talon Widowmaker (and others) world where everything is magically ok, Domesticity, F/F, Fluff, One Shot Collection, Prompt fics!!, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2018-12-18 07:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11869824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_arahuyo/pseuds/M_arahuyo
Summary: english, n.: the area around a fireplace; close to a hearth: homeSnippets of moments in Lena's and Amélie's life together.





	1. twenty-one; four-poster

**Author's Note:**

> i'm trying to get out of a writer's block by writing sort of fluff. 
> 
> pieces in this series are presented in no chronological order. enjoy!

_twenty-one_

_***_

 

Outside, the rain falls in timid pitter-patters on the roof and windows and the near-muted hum of cars of King's Row fleet pass: sounds too familiar to be a deterrent to the peace. Calm-quiet, as normal as the smell of chamomile tea in the living room and athletic body spray in their bedroom.  

Amélie leisurely reads  _The Captain's Verses–I have scarcely left you when you go in me, crystalline–_ absorbing the English and mouthing the Spanish, because Sombra may be an uncultured swine but she wasn't lying when she said the language is beautiful. The rolling  _R_ 's are hard to perfect, however, but she'll never admit that. 

And in the middle of the picturesque tranquility, her tea and the distant honk of a car and Pablo Neruda's _as when your eyes close upon the gift of life; that without cease I give you_ , a disgruntled sound comes from the living room. Eyes snap up. 

The mop of brown hair on the couch shakes, tree leaves on a windy day. Amélie waits with purpose. The mop dips low enough to almost disappear before bobbing back in full view with yet another grunt. 

"What are you doing." Amélie questions in a not-question. The mop of brown hair wiggles and wide, brown eyes peer at her from over the sofa's backrest, rich like dried earth, forever mirthful. 

"Waxing." 

"Waxing," Amélie repeats, unimpressed. Lena nods. "Waxing what?" 

"My legs, love, I look like half a sasquatch down here." Lena looks away and her hair shudders low. The cowlicks of them stretch high and remain in sight. "That just won't do, yeah?" 

"Your legs are magnificent. Why are you waxing in the living room?" 

"It's comfortable." 

"It's disgusting." 

Amélie allows Lena an eyefull of low eyebrows and pursed lips. Lena's eyes roll. "It's just body hair and wax, it'll come off the carpet–" 

"But not the cushions _,_ " Amélie insists with a frown. When Lena rolls her eyes again and turns away, "Lena, the _cushions_." 

"It'll be easy to clean, don't worry!" A hand with a strip of waxing paper sheened with shiny wax comes up to flap dismissively. "Nothing a good vacuuming won't fix." 

Amélie sighs through her nose and resigns herself to the fate of thoroughly cleaning up the cushions later. She goes back to her book. A sip of tea, a flip of a page, lines that say  _I am the tiger; I lie in wait for you among the leaves_ , and Lena grunts again. 

"Do you need any help?" Amélie asks without looking up. Lena chirps,  _no_ , with difficulty and Amélie hums around the rim of her cup. "You're doing it wrong and you'll be done faster with my help." 

"Perfectly fine, Amé." 

"You spread the wax on your leg, not the strips." 

A pause. "Oh." A longer one. "Really?" 

Amélie reads three lines and sips twice before responding tonelessly, " _yes,_ _really_ , and shaving is effective and painless, as I'm sure you already know and have done _._ " 

"Jesse said the hairs grow back a lot slower this way." Lena's eyes blink at her from above the backrest again. "So, if you really think about it, waxing is a lot more effective in the long run." 

Amélie forces herself not to linger on the fact that this knowledge of body hair supposedly came from Jesse McCree. "I maintain that shaving is more effective and considerably less painful. I've waxed before so I know this. Now, if you insist on continuing, at least let me help." 

"I'm fine!" Lena turns away. A grunt, something like  _bollocks_ under her breath. Amélie's sigh is heavy. "I'm a bloody _hero_ , for crying out loud, I've looked death in the eye at least twenty times in this lifetime! What's a bit of waxing, eh?" 

An eyeroll. "Are you sure?" 

"Very." 

Amélie hums, "suit yourself," and dog-ears the page on her book– _the white river grows beneath the fog; you come._ She picks up her teacup, empties it, and stands from the dining table to place said cup in the sink. Lena's head twitches and trembles on the sofa. Amélie watches it with idle interest. She leans on the kitchen counter. She checks her nails, painted a glossy concord to accentuate purple skin, mumbles Spanish lines, tries to get that rolling _R_ right. She waits. 

Grumbling marks Lena's efforts, like the rumble of some aggravated vehicle. Her head drops low, raises, shakes. One hand goes up to scratch it. She groans, sighs. She turns and Amélie readily meets her eyes. Amélie raises her brows. "Yes?" 

"... Little help?" 

Lena grumbles the entire time Amélie crosses the distance of kitchen to living room like a cat, hips swishing, smiling wide and smug. 

Amélie lowers to her haunches before Lena, nose wrinkled in distaste at the mess on the carpet. A tin of melted wax, a garbage bin dragged nearby, filled with whirls of misused waxing strips, splatters of already drying wax on the carpet, the _cushions._  Lena hands over a box of fresh strips. Amélie inspects the packaging. 

"This has instructions," she provides in monotone. 

"It's just waxing, innit? Just slap the damn things on and pull 'em off." 

Amélie looks up to the heavens for patience and sets the box down. She picks up Lena's foot, lets it rest on her thigh, and begins to slather the wax on the connected leg. Lena starts. Amélie pauses to look up with a lifted brow. 

"That's–heh–warm. And–and kinda sticky. _Hah_ , continue." 

Amélie raises a clean strip to Lena's face. Lena pales just enough to make Amélie have to consciously hold back a laugh. "Oi– _so_ –so, uh, listen, love, that's gonna hurt, right?" Amélie hums a casual confirmation and slaps the strip on the glinting sheen of wax on Lena's leg. " _Alright_ , full disclosure, I couldn't do this properly because I know it'll hurt like  _hell,_ and caring about the hurting part is really what's keeping me, but since _you're_ doing it can I just ask you be  _gentle_ –" 

Amélie snatches the strip off, quick and clean. Lena howls. On Amélie's lap, her leg jerks, stiffens, and her foot stretches to a taut point Amélie only thought possible during an orgasm. Both Lena's arms spring up and whip, claws digging into the nearest available objects. Amélie worries briefly about nail marks on the cushions. 

"H–holy  _shit,_ oh my  _God,_ bloody  _hell_ ,  _oh fuck you, Jesse,_ oh-hoh,  _ow–_ " 

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Amélie remarks. Lena's eyes shrink to accusatory pinpricks in the face of Amélie's nonchalant innocence. They widen again when Amélie procures another strip from the package.  

"Wh–what are you doing?" Legitimate fear creeps to Lena's voice. Amélie tries not to enjoy this activity too much. 

"We're not done with that one," pointing to the leg on her lap, one side faintly red but remarkably flawless. She twists the appendage and eyes the hairs on the next side with intelligent scrutiny. "I only let you catch your breath,  _chérie,_ we have a long way to go." 

Lena looks on in horror as Amélie makes to spread wax on her leg again. She hangs tight onto the cushions. Amélie smiles sweetly and makes sure that's _twenty-one_ times Lena's looked death in the face. 

"Can you at least count this time?" Lena squeaks. Sweat runs down one side of her face. Amélie considers it. 

"On three?" 

"On three, yeah." 

Amélie slaps a strip on. "One, two, three–" she yanks the strip off. Lena chokes and shouts. Other sides more to work on, one more leg after to go. Amélie cracks her knuckles. Lena promises never again to listen to Jesse McCree. 

 

* * *

 

_four-poster_

***

 

Next to her, Amélie is speaking in that hot, vaguely disinterested, _I am above you and you can't do anything about it_ way she usually does. On any other occasion, Lena would stare daggers at the sales clerk blatantly grovelling all over her partner. Presently, however, she is just trying very hard to keep her eyes in their sockets through sheer composure and willpower. 

"Amé," she stage-whispers. Amélie shushes her lightly and waves a dismissive hand. Lena purses her lips and nudges Amélie with an elbow. Amélie sighs surrender, stops mid-sentence to turn around, and lifts a questioning brow. 

"This bed is four thousand eight hundred quid," Lena murmurs. Amélie looks at the display before them, a four-poster bedframe in dark finish and shiny, tan accents, and back at Lena with a blank look. 

When Lena adds nothing else, "and?" she prompts stoically. 

"It's  _four thousand eight hundred quid,_ " Lena whispers frantically. " _Four thousand eight hundred._ " 

"I see that, Lena. It's good that you still have abilities of observation." 

"Who would buy a bed like  _this?_ " Lena gestures wildly to the display. 

"Not us," Amélie replies thoughtfully. "This is King-sized. We're getting a European King. That's bigger by a slight margin, more room for movement–" 

" _What?_ Why?We have a  _bed!_ A perfectly functioning bed! I'd much rather we buy a new microwave! _That_ won't cost us _four thousand eight hundred quid,_  at least!" 

"Lena," Amélie begins, "your bed is _antique_  and makes even the sweetest of love making sounds sound unholy. It's very inconsiderate to our neighbors on that regard. Also, it hurts my back and goes terribly with the modern motif of the rest of your furniture." 

"We could go to IKEA! They have a _wonderful_ selection of beds that you could buy _a hundred of_ with four-eight quid!" 

Amélie scrunches her nose in a flagrant look of offense. " _But_ do they have a European King four-poster made of premium timber and mahogany from _Simon Horn_? No, they do not." She palms one of the posts reverently, mind working behind her eyes. "These posts are perfect, no? They seem sturdy enough to be able to resist force when I'm tied down–"

" _Because you're a violent sleeper!_ " Lena interjects extra loud. "Thrashing all over the place, _heh,_ hit me one too many times up the head, you have."

The sales clerk is pretending not to be flushing from his neck to his forehead. Amélie saves him from his winding imagination. " _Mo_ _nsieur,_ the European King?" 

Bright-eyed and young and gushing, _the wanker_ , the sales clerk smiles charmingly. He cossets at top gear. "An additional twenty-one centimeters to mattress length and fifteen centimeters to width, madame, all the space an elegant woman like you needs. The list price for European Kings on this model is four thousand nine hundred fifty–" 

" _Four-nine?_ " Lena splutters at the same time Amélie says, "we'll take it." 

Lena holds onto the checkout counter for dear life while her lover casually writes a check for  _four-nine quid_ ,all graceful loops of dark ink on adorned paper. She imagines college funds for children they may or may not have–if the latter, spoils and treats for the nineteen cats and twelve dogs they could instead. 

In the car, Lena watches the hideously expensive work of carpentry be loaded into the truck behind them through the rearview mirror. Amélie occupies the passenger side once she's confirmed the truck is ready and turns down the radio. Vintage British rock. 

"Could you get any more British?" 

"Could you get any more _French?_ " Lena murmurs in turn. "I mean, it's the stereotype. Expensive and classy and suave and..." she exhales, " _expensive._ " 

"Does my material self-indulgence bother you?" 

Lena puts the car in gear and gives Amélie a sidelong glance. Amélie's eyes glint where sunlight plays in them, gold and rich and searching. The car hums down the road and the light shifts to shadow. " _Well_... I mean, it's  _your_ money, right? Birthright or...  _inheritance_ or something. So, if you wanna spoil yourself with it, why not?" 

"I spoil myself with it because you refuse to let mespoil _you_ with it," Amélie replies. 

"I only wanna take what I can give back, love. Can only spoil you with the little things, sadly." 

Amélie scoffs. " _Little?_ " She scoffs again, lower. "Lena,  _that–_ " jerking her thumb toward the truck following behind them "–is little. Material. Tangible. Tiny in comparison to how you spoil me." 

Heart aflutter, Lena chances a look at her lover and finds Amélie looking straight ahead. Hot, vaguely disinterested, all  _I am above you and you can't do anything about it._ She pokes Amélie's knuckle with a pinkie. Amélie looks at her and her face melts into an expression that reminds Lena of sunrises. 

"Thai take-outs?" Lena asks. Amélie makes a sound of thought. 

"Perfect," she answers. She reaches to rest her hand atop Lena's on the gearshift, smooths her thumb in slow circles on the skin. The thin bracelet on her wrist is dim, switched off, and the brown of her complexion has started to fade to pallid purple. Outside, a squall rustles trees and the clothes of pedestrians. Lena's insides flutter with them. "And then, _maybe_ , put the new bed to use." Rippling shadows make Amélie's eyes smolder. "Spoil me?" 

One drive and packs of Thai take-outs for dinner later, Lena does. 


	2. adjust; universe

_adjust_

*** 

 

Muted pads of feet and the click of a knob's lock, gentle, considerate. Lena hefts her eyes up and watches Amélie rub her hair dry with a towel. She is a Romantic sculpture of water droplets and shower steam and the flawless precision of the way her eyes fall on Lena in the corner of the room, draped on a chair and blowdrying her hair. 

"How's the water?" Lena asks for no other reason than the want for conversation. Amélie shrugs, lowers the towel meant for her head and her hair falls slack, dripping, dark and deep like ocean trenches. She gathers it to one shoulder. 

"Better now. Temperature seems more manageable." 

"Hm. It better be," Lena says with a nod. For years, the water in her apartment has been stuck to perpetually balmy, through some glorious fault in the plumbing. Which was all good until the arrival of the additional tenant who felt anything beyond lukewarm as scalp-searingly hot. 

Adjustments were in order. Lena thinks of her modest few cologne and cream bottles hostaged to one corner of the bathroom vanity, to make way for fancy containers with near-abstract shapes and incomprehensible purposes on the rest of the available space. Amélie is gorgeous, dangerously so, but no one just wakes up looking like they walked out of a magazine cover photoshoot. 

She stares now, as Amélie walks forward. The towel moves around her. It hikes up to reveal a thigh, full and smooth, the shade of evening, of velvet silk, riddled with ripples of water droplets. She lifts her gaze and sees Amélie's brow quirked. 

"You are ready?" 

Lena switches off the hairdryer. It dies with a choked cough, which Amélie frowns distastefully to. "Yep. Just the coat and I'm all set." 

Amélie hums her understanding. She walks to the bed and shrugs the towel off. Lena sees the tattoo on her back, the droplets racing from her scalp to the bones of her shoulder blades and her spine. Her mouth works. Amélie dons her undergarments like she doesn't care. Which she most probably doesn't. 

"You have our tickets to the show?" 

"Yep. Front row. VIP. Just 'cause you won't settle for anything less." The last part is said in a mumble. Amélie slithers into a dress of deep purple, dark like her hair, like evening oceans, like issues locked away and refusing to be opened. "We ought to get going in the next half hour if we wanna get to Sadler Well's and see the show on time." 

Amélie shows her assent through walking _extra slowly_ toward Lena. Her hand comes up for the blasted hairdryer and Lena surrenders it, no question on the matter. It comes on with less fanfare than it came off. Amélie works it through her own hair. 

"What're we seeing?" Lena asks idly. 

" _Don Quixote_ ," Amélie answers without pause. "I've performed the lead many times. I know it by heart." 

"Do you miss it?" 

Amélie's eyes flick left, to Lena, and then right. 

"What?" 

"Dancing." 

Amélie's eyes flick left again. Lena meets them quietly. "Do you miss flying?" 

Lena chews the inside of her cheek. "I do." 

"Dancing is to me as flying is to you," Amélie supplies. The drone of the hairdryer lingers for several more seconds. "Certain things have stopped me from doing it. That does not necessarily mean I should stop enjoying it." 

Lena's eyes dart to Amélie's legs, to the partition of flesh from steel, and then to her own body, the accelerator glaring like an angry, blue vengeance. The blowdryer continues its annoying little buzz. Amélie turns around. 

"Zip me up,  _chérie?_ " 

Lena does. She stands up, fingers the zipper at Amélie's tail bone, and pulls it up. Amélie, in turn, twists to redo Lena's necktie. 

"I refuse to let the world get in the way," she murmurs as she finishes the windsor. Her eyes are soft, melted gold and dripping honey in a bowl. Full and luscious and lustrous. "I will enjoy dancing in other ways." 

Lena nods. Amélie tosses the hairdryer to the bed and tips her head thoughtfully. "And you?" 

"I can't pilot anymore." 

"But you  _can_ fly," Amélie insists with a soft edge, hard like a sword but mellow like dragging it through fluff and pillows. "In more ways than one." 

Lena thinks of the many times Winston has asked her to help train pilots for aircraft prototypes. The many times he's asked her to provide input for the many, many projects he has in mind. Not the Slipstream. But better. 

The many, many times she has rejected him. 

Lena swallows. Amélie moves away and toward their bedroom vanity, littered with her packs of makeup and other ridiculous batches of beauty cremes. Lena's own moisturizers and daylight lotions are on a sad corner on one side. 

She supposes further adjustments are in order. 

"Guess I can," she allows. Amélie looks at her through the mirror. "Maybe I should try... working with flying again." 

Amélie switches on her bracelets. The evening palette of her skin fades away to a sunnier brown, like sand awash with daylight. It stretches to disguise her prosthetics. She picks something up–foundation, Lena belatedly realizes like some kind of goof–and smiles at Lena through the mirror. 

"In your own pace, Lena," she chuckles lightly. "The sky will not leave." 

Lena walks, shoes shining in the light and heels tapping on the hardwood. She winds her arms around Amélie's middle and Amélie hums, impassive, busy with her ministrations, concentrating. Lena moves back a little to adjust. 

And she is so, so glad to adjust. 

 

* * *

 

_universe_

***

 

Widowmaker's shoulders are killing her. Two bullets have gone through the left and bruises are starting to bloom on the right, she's sure. Tracer is at her side, mouth and chin a sheen of gore, blood trailing from her mouth down to her jaw. The street is radio silence and stinks of death. Talon corpses lie around them. Overwatch extraction has yet to arrive. 

Tracer winces, all pain and discomfort. Her accelerator is in bad shape. One of her bracers is cracked in the middle like a walnut. She does not flicker, at least, in and out of reality. Widowmaker reaches out and grasps her hand to make sure she _does not_ flicker. She inches close. Tracer smells like wounds. Like scorched steel and the aftersmell of burnt plasma. Like sunlight and hope and warm, good things. 

"If you disappear," Widowmaker wheezes, lead in her shoulder and tired muscles under her skin, "I will make sure you won't recognize your apartment as the pig sty you've gotten so used to when you get back." 

"Aw, hell, will you fill it with fancy furniture–" 

"And drapes. Fancy drapes and carpets. All designer. I won't let you wax on absolutely  _anything_ I buy–" 

And Tracer laughs, pained but full, a thousand stars and planets and big bangs springing from her mouth. To Widowmaker, the sound of it is exactly that–the universe. 


	3. edible; aspirin

_edible_

_***_

 

Amélie looks down, and then up at Lena's face. Down again, up, twice more from the top. Her jaw works, her mouth hangs slack. She cannot force her eyebrows to lower. 

"Say  _one_ unpleasant thing," Lena warns. Amélie's jaw snaps shut. She is not one to be threatened so easily, oh no, but a pleased Lena is always better than a sulking Lena. Plus, the peril of who knows how many nights on the couch is  _very_ real. 

"It's..." Amélie tries. She comes up empty and makes another desperate attempt in the face of her eager, starry-eyed lover. " _It's_... it's _something_." 

" _Something..._ as in?" Lena fishes. Amélie is sure she's making a face that looks vaguely constipated. 

"... hopefully edible?" 

Lena's shoulders sag. Next to Amélie, Sombra gives a merciless guffaw and professes, " _horrific_ , she means. Blasphemous. Hideous?" She ponders this while depositing numerous, pastel-colored shopping bags atop the coffee table. " _Hideous_ works." 

Lena gives their friend an impressive stinkeye and Amélie understands being offended, but  _really._ For _muffins_ , they're  _horrible._ She sees more black than brown on the poor, misshapen things and about nine out of ten appear to have deflated into nightmarish craters. A few of them have strange, purplish discolorations and bubbles still sizzling on top like lava. 

On one, Amélie spies a bubble expand, wobble, and then pop. She feels her eyebrows crawl to her hairline. 

"They don't look _that_ bad!" Lena defends in earnest and oh, Amélie could  _really_ hear the pure intention in her voice and it makes this entire affair so much _worse_. "So okay, I might've left them in the oven for too long–" 

"I think you left them in the fire long enough that the devil got to them, eh,  _chica?_ " Sombra nudges Amélie with her elbow, eyebrows pumping wildly. "You'd think for someone who uses time as a weapon you have a pretty good grip of it." 

Which is true. 

"I was distracted! Reruns of Tom and Jerry were on!" Lena huffs with red ears. She directs those wide, sparkling eyes to Amélie and Amélie swallows. "You think they're fine, right, love? I mean, they don't look totally terrible, do they?" 

Amélie looks down at the proffered tray again just for the hell of it. On their coffee table, still positively  _smoking,_ looking like little lumps of evil and darkness in contrast to hers and Sombra's bright shopping bags. If she sniffs hard enough, she could dissect the smell of singed iron with the odor of burnt dough now filling the living room. 

She weighs the pros and cons of the couch briefly. 

"Lena _,_ " she begins as she takes a seat on the couch. Sombra has already sprawled on it like she's paying the bills with them. "If I march into the kitchen right now, will I still find most of it intact or should I start making arrangements for new cooking wares?" 

"Oi!" 

"Better whip up that checkbook, Amé," Sombra opines. She ignores the glare Lena shoots her like a pro. Leaned back, going through a particularly shiny, silver bag, she continues, "maybe get me a microwave while you're at it, too? Mine exploded a week back." 

"Might I ask how?" 

"I forgot I left a fork in the bowl. I just wanted some mac and cheese,  _chica,_ I got so damn excited about it." She procures a scandalous bit of flimsy, red fabric from the _Harvey Nichol's_ bag _._ She shoves it in Amélie's face with thumb and forefinger. "Do you think Satya will like this on me? I'm worried I don't have the butt to do it justice." 

"Have you been following my leg toning regimen?" 

"I am, I don't know how  _I am_ , honestly, it's _murder_ –"

"Oi!  _Oi,_ my muffins! We're talking about _my muffins!_ " Lena squeals. Sombra snorts and Amélie gives a very unladylike snicker. 

"Your  _muffins,_ _qué chula_ –" 

" _Really, chérie–_ " 

Lena wrings her hands in the air at both of them. She's making a very convincing impression of a beet. "Muffins! That I  _baked!_ _They're not that bad!_ " she insists. "And maybe if you actually got around to _trying_ them, you'd know!" 

Sombra laughs behind her thong. "Oh- _hoh_ -no, _hell no_ , I have so much more to live for. So much more sexy lingerie to buy and wear and get  _torn_ off me." 

"I'll have you know, I might not look like it but I can make excellent muffins!" 

"Excellently  _burned,_ you mean–" 

" _Excellent muffins,_ " Lena maintains fiercely with a sneer and a shook fist. 

Amélie opens her mouth: closes it quickly when Lena's eyes dart expectantly–hopefully, oh God,  _hopefully_ –to her. Lena is doing that thing with her eyes, there–right,  _right there_ –big and round and pleading, and her mouth is agape in an excited little  _o._ Amélie's soul squirms at the look. Her insides squirm for a different reason entirely. 

"Just a bite?" she wheedles. Amélie's eyes dart all sorts of directions like a trapped cat in a bathtub with the shower nozzle looming inches away. She whines under her breath like one, too. "I mean, I worked on them and everything." And– _and–_ ah, here it is, the kicker: "They're for you." 

Amélie's eyelids flutter closed. She inhales, exhales. 

"Fine," she mutters. Lena's fists find the air and she whoops like a maniac. Sombra splutters next to Amélie. The couch wobbles with her whipping limbs. The thong flings to the air, forgotten. 

" _Ay,_ you're not serious, are you?  _Look at them!_ " 

Oh, Amélie is looking. Lena prods the tray forward and the muffins bounce and skitter haphazardly around like deformed, sentient beings. Sombra flinches back in defense and makes a disgusted sound. Amélie feels but cannot express the same. She looks at her partner who nods at her encouragingly, grin spread wide, hands clasped to her chest. 

It might help to not look at it. The one she's taken is stiff as a  _rock_ around her fingers and is even more malformed up close. She looks sidelong at Sombra who has sat up straighter to watch with a cautious expression. The red thong makes an unwitting descent and lands lopsided on Sombra's head. 

"Lillies?" Sombra asks at length. "Chrysanthemums–no, hydrangea?" 

"Yes." 

"Jazz music? No– _no,_ that Debussy record you love so much? _Clair de Lune?_ " 

" _God_ yes." 

"What?" Lena squawks. "What are you two talking about?" 

"The funeral," they say in unison. Lena scoffs at them and hurls an oven mitt at Sombra. She sniffs petulantly before returning to watching her lover. Amélie watches her back. Their relationship is founded on a system, see, a system that explicitly states Amélie does the cooking and Lena does the dishes. A system ultimately poised around the fact that her partner's culinary skills is limited to microwave meals and anything beyond is like playing a roulette of  _barely edible or downright poisonous._

She wonders mildly if Angela is willing to perform gastric suctions and the like. 

Lena cues, "come on then, love!" and Amélie fights the urge to gag. She holds her breath, mostly because that burnt smell is  _overpowering._ She bites off a chunk with an ugly _crunch_. The filling is a ghastly, inhumane shade of purple that drips to her chin and sticks to the roof of her mouth. Charred crust shatters to a thousand powdery pieces between her teeth. 

She swallows. 

"... Well?" Lena prompts. 

" _Vieja,_ blink so I know you're still in there," Sombra hedges. 

Amélie's eyebrows wrench over the bridge of her nose. She looks at the muffin in her hand with equal parts surprise and confusion. She smacks her lips. "It's... it's good," she observes. "Bitter outside where it's burned, but–" 

"Good?" Lena squeaks in delight. 

" _Good?_ " Sombra sputters. She looks wildly between the tray of horrendous-looking muffins and Amélie. 

"Is it really?" Lena asks breathlessly. 

Amélie takes another prudent bite with less difficulty now that she knows what to expect. " _Huh,_ " comes her second observation. Lena's smile threatens to eclipse her face if not break it in half. Sombra looks so shocked she looks almost affronted. 

"Really," Amélie supplies to her friend with a shrug. She bites off another mouthful. "It's not that bad." 

 

* * *

 

_aspirin_

_***_

 

Sunlight comes into the room in a thick slat, a golden ribbon through the fjord of the parted curtains. Lena moves to close it just halfway. The stream shrinks by a half and the light in the kitchen dims to a lazy russet. Visible, not at all blinding. 

The coffee machine hums with activity. Lena sets the bag of steaming buns on the table and sheds her jacket, a size too big and bulky for obvious purposes. She drapes it on a seat. 

From her jeans pocket, she pulls out a packet of aspirins and from the fridge, a bottle of water to place on the table. When the coffee maker clicks and the scent of Amélie's favorite  _Carmen Patino_ fills the kitchen, two cups of that find the table as well. 

She's moving the buns from the bag to a plate when Amélie pads in, slow and groaning. Her night gown is askew, one mauve shoulder peeks at Lena innocently. She's mixed up their slippers and has ended up with a fuzzy, yellow puppy on the left and a poofy, purple cat on the right. She scratches one underarm with an uncharacteristic lack of poise. She yawns. 

"Mornin', love," Lena imparts. Amélie grunts quietly. Her hair is a morning mess of long tangles and gnarls and Lena wonders if they should both go for a trim. "Slept well?" 

Amélie mumbles something like  _yuh_ and plops down on one chair with consistent inelegance. Lena hums and moves a cup of coffee toward her partner with one hand, milk carton in the other and pouring generously. She leaves her own cup dark and pure. 

"Night out with Gabe and Sombra good?" she asks. Amélie tips her head in a nod and then holds it. Lena adjusts the plate of buns to be within her partner's reach, pack of aspirins sliding near as well. "Butter?" she prods. 

Amélie shakes her head, gently, so as not to jostle her brain further, Lena imagines. Before she could sit on her own chair, Amélie takes her wrist and lifts the connected hand to her mouth. She dollops a kiss on the knuckle of Lena's thumb. 

"Good morning,  _chérie,_ " she rasps. Lena makes a chirping sound of acknowledgment and picks up a warm bun to nosh on. Amélie starts with the aspirin. 


	4. pillows; settee; blanket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three snippets, widowtracer + sleep. short, fluffy, pointless
> 
> enjoy <3

_pillows_

*** 

 

Amélie had meant to wait for Lena to get back. Still in her catsuit and sore in fifteen different places,  _most_ of all on one buttock from when Jesse missed a mark and severed the line of her graphook instead. She is reformed, yes, but Mei confiscated her rifle and sat next to her the entire trip back just to be extra sure. 

Lena left a note on the fridge. An affair of some kind with Hana and Lucio on trying to get the former's MEKA to fly.  _Angela's fault,_ Lena said on the note, chicken-scratch scrawled, written fast like her legs, her mind, her wit.  _Hana won't shut up about wanting to fly now._ Amélie had rolled her eyes, chosen a book, and retreated to the couch to wait. 

It's the ache on the aforementioned buttock she first feels when she opens her eyes now. She twists. She whips her arm forward so her fingers catch the hems of sleeping shorts. " _You're home_ ," she grouses, throat rasped with sleep and dry spittle. " _Nnn_ time is it?" 

"Little past midnight," Lena replies. She leans over Amélie and Amélie smells soap, Lena's favorite lemon-scented shampoo, their pink fabric conditioner: soft things, light things, peaceful things. "Come on now, love. Let's get you to bed." 

Groggy, exhausted, head swimming with sleep, and buttock absolutely  _flaming_ still, Amélie does little beyond grumble when Lena hoists her up. She walks, at least, because Lena isn't that strong and she's got bits of metal for certain body parts not even Angela can just get rid of. She leans. Lena's hair is still damp. "You showered?" 

"Yeah. Came in about half an hour ago, had my key with me. You were out cold, you were." 

"Tired," Amélie defends. Her eyebrows screw over the bridge of her nose. 

"So you are." Lena pads her thumb between Amélie's brows until they slack. Her touch is featherlight, eyes cut like quartz searchlights in the darkness. "How was Nagasaki?" she asks. She lays Amélie down on their bed and follows suit. 

"Decent." Amélie tries to power through a yawn–fails miserably, jaw popping below her ears. Tracing one hand low, she pads her hand across Lena's belly. Lena is warm against her. A space heater, Amélie recalls describing to Sombra once. "There are  _shochu_ and castella treats in the fridge." 

" _Shochu, really?_ " 

"You know my vices," Amélie grumbles faintly. Lena laughs against the top of her head. Her voice is all kinds of tender: soft, light, peaceful. She sketches fingertips along the line of Amélie's jaw. 

"Go back to sleep, love." 

Her breath tickles Amélie's scalp whisper-soft. Amélie sidles closer. She closes her eyes and makes pillows of her lover's collarbones. 

 

* * *

 

_settee_

*** 

 

They had filed into the lounging room like zombies, for the lack of a prettier description. No one was harmed grievously enough to make Angela open the medbay. Bandaids, gauze pads, ointments—they had enough of them in the hovercraft medkit, besides. Even a kid would know how to cover up a scratch. 

Angela is curled up on one couch, legs dangling off an armrest, eyes closed. Ana snores on the next one. Lucio is sharing a mega bean bag with Hana, their faces bottomlit by their phones, yawning in front of their screens. Winston sets the lights to dim before shuffling back to his hammock. 

Amélie hums appreciatively. Beneath Lena she is a cat, stretched long, lithe, languid. Her arm hangs off the settee's edge and the other is coiled to cushion her cheek. Lena rests her head on the scoop between Amélie's shoulder blades. Fatigue thrums through her muscles, squeezes her bones. Lack of sleep is burning the back of her eyeballs. 

"Comfy?" 

Amélie hums _yes_ but Lena still adjusts, just a little, makes sure her accelerator isn't stabbing into anything squishy and–or–important. She tangles their legs together in the process, drapes her arm over Amélie's back. Amélie eases into her, a subtle shift of her hips. 

Hana yawns audibly from where she is. "I got dibs on the divan for next time," she announces hoarsely. Amélie grunts assent. Winston shushes: mutters,  _quiet,_ and all falls as such. 

In minutes, Amélie's breaths burrow soft and deep. Lena sleeps to her lover's slow, slow heartbeats and slow, slow snores. 

 

* * *

 

_blanket_

*** 

 

They are not perfect. 

How could they be—when Lena still can't handle the dark sometimes, and can't sleep without a light on in the next room or Amélie's weight bearing down the other side of the mattress: when Amélie always,  _always,_ checks the locks on their door and windows eleven times if not ten every night before they go to sleep, and insists on seeing Angela for tests at least three times a week. 

They are not perfect, from the horrors swirling around in Lena's head to the tips of Amélie's artificial toes. They are not perfect, and Amélie thinks this as Lena jostles her awake in the middle of the night with agitated motions. 

She twists, slowly, calmly—

not frantic, not panicking, not wide-eyed and scared silly because Lena is sweating and crying and  _nightmare nightmare nightmare_ she's saying 

—and gropes forward in the dark. Lena's hair is soft between her fingers. Amélie's voice is a thin wisp of a thing barely carried above the pitter-patter of rain on the roof and windows. "Lena?" 

" _Amé,_ " Lena grouches. She makes a sound suspiciously like a lip smack with drool. "Stop hogging the blanket." 

Amélie pauses. She obliges an instant later. She untwists the blanket from around her person, arranges it around them diligently enough that it cloaks her lover and a good portion of the spare space. A longer moment, and then, "is that all,  _chérie?_ " 

The bed shifts. Lena makes a sound like  _nuh-uh_ and creeps close. "Roll over," she slurs, and Amélie does. Her front finds Amélie's spine. Their thighs brush. Lena's knees slip into the slots behind Amélie's and it is imperfect: height differences, different puzzle pieces, fitting but not quite. 

Her arm loops around Amélie's middle and the hand at the end is slack, until Amélie scoops it up to hold. She intertwines their fingers. Their hands make up for their knees. 

Lena's breaths go deep, run slow. She warms the curve of Amélie's neck with them. Amélie stays up a few minutes longer to pace the lazy, runner's heartbeat against her spine. It does not spike. 

It continues to rain outside. She doesn't worry about spills because she checked the windows eleven times. 

They are not perfect, no, but they're okay. 


	5. seasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't written anything since i completed my other fic and i realized that was over 3 months ago ~~whoops~~ :')
> 
> here are 4 writing exercises. as is the point of this whole compilation, just pointless, domestic fluff. enjoy!

_spring_

_***_

  
Amélie slathers the paint in firm, broad strokes. Her muscles ripple loose then taut with every stretch of her arm: solid, versatile, a dancer’s limb. Lena’s mouth is kind of watering.

“Oi, uh.” Amélie turns to Lena with her arm outstretched, roller frozen on the wall. Under it is a fine sheen of deep cream paint. She quirks a brow and Lena fidgets, tips the juice glasses in her hands awkwardly. “Refreshments?”

“On the table.”

“A’ight.”

“You’ve finished the bedroom?”

“Not yet.” Lena deposits one of the glasses on the coffee table. And then she turns, plants her butt on it, and watches with stretched, aching legs as Amélie carries on with her painting. Amélie’s made fine work of the living room—the coloring is even, strokes blended seamless and sure. Lena thinks of the uneven shades she’s done to the bedroom. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Paint so bloody well,” Lena says after a drink of her juice. Amélie snickers. “No, I mean it. My work’s a bit of a mess.”

“Because you rush it.”

Lena grumbles. The balcony sliding door is wide open. Wind breezes through the room in pausing, fleeting squalls like the gentle sighs of some peaceful god in the clear, blue horizon. Greens of fresh leaves hang off branches over the railings. Lena lets the air cool her down, blinks at her lover's back, thinks of picking up some flowers to spruce the place up a little.

“It’s just rolling on some paint, though.”

“ _Rolling on some paint_ with finesse, preferably, if you want it to turn out nicely,” Amélie supplies with a quick glance at Lena over her shoulder. To demonstrate, she spreads the next stroke slower. Her roller grinds faintly with friction. Her arm blooms slow to full length and the muscles bunch with exerted pressure. “The same amount of strength through a whole spread, see? It evens the paint applied to an area. Consistency is key.”

“Don’t gotta talk about painting the bloody apartment like it’s fancy work, love,” Lena mumbles around the rim of her glass. Amélie dries out the roller with a few more strokes before setting it down on the paint tray to join Lena on the coffee table. She sits, and Lena smells paint, a subtle undertone of sweat: thinks of tea and old books. Amélie sips her juice with a hum.

“I like to think things we want to turn out well require fancy work, _chérie_.”

“You don’t say?”

Amélie hums her affirmative. Lena watches her sidelong. “Moving in, for instance. Living together.”

Lena feels warmth broil up to her ears. She stares at Amélie’s work: the living room wall half-covered with new, cream paint. Might take the rest of the day to complete the whole place. “Want this to turn out well, do you?” she teases with a shoulder nudge. Amélie grunts half-heartedly.

“I’m sweaty,” she chides, to which Lena rubs their arms up together again. That earns Lena another grunt. “Naturally. I want this to go well.”

“Don’t you think it will?”

“Oh, it will,” Amélie professes. Lena cracks a surprised laugh. Something stutters in her chest and she scratches her side idly, grinning.

“How do you know that?”

“I have the patience for the _fancy work_ ,” Amélie says with a smirking glance. “You should know what that means.”

“Oi! My house habits aren’t that terrible!”

Amélie only scoffs and stands back up. She leaves her halved glass on the coffee table. “I brought all your laundry that you left at the chateau, just so you know. It has its own carryon.”

Lena grumbles, watches her partner go. Amélie’s started painting again. “Fancy work, then?”

“Fancy work.”

Lena stays to watch for five more minutes. Emptying her glass, she rises, proclaims, “right, fancy work,” and goes back to the bedroom to continue. A breeze rolls languid across her shoulder like the lazy titter of Amélie's laugh. 

 

* * *

 

_summer_

_***_

  
“The paint here,” Angela observes thoughtfully with a gesture of her hand, sweeping it back and forth over the wall. “It’s uneven.”

“Not my handiwork.”

“ _I tried really hard!_ ” Lena shrieks from the living room. Angela snorts. Amélie rolls her eyes and grunts and hears herself chuckle just the same. She clicks her tongue.

“Not hard enough.”

“ _That's what she said!_ ” Hana hollers. It's followed by Lena's chipper giggle and Lucio’s mortified groan. Angela snickers, all too professional and lady-like, fanning her hand over her mouth.

The balcony sliding door is wrenched open. The sun beats down on the polished floors of it and creeps like jagged fingers across the living room carpets, teasing, mocking—humid, uncomfortably _hot_. Amélie frowns at the sight of it. Angela shoves an old bookshelf out through the bedroom doorway, and Amélie slowly follows her out.

In the living room, Lucio is attaching the last few screws onto the new bookshelf. It's bigger than their old one, a little darker, certainly shinier. The whole classy, vaguely Gothic motif, just the way Amélie likes it. Hana is scarfing down a bag of Doritos. Lena is sat next to Amélie's boxes of records and books, watching Lucio.

“It’s a good-looking bookshelf,” Angela observes, leaning on the old one— _hers_ now, she'd asked for it when Lena told her about some furniture shopping she and Amélie did. Amélie had hoped she'd take their old, noisy bed too but Angela had only laughed like she was joking. She wasn’t. “Good eye.”

“Lena picked it out,” Amélie provides. Angela makes a sound like  _huh_ and Lena looks up at them with a cheeky smile. “I’m surprised as well.”

“Not that hard to choose for you. Literally just picked the fanciest-looking one.”

Angela may have laughed if not for Amélie grunting. She probably does, anyway—Amélie hears her cough abruptly into her fist. Lucio grins. Hana is a lot less graceful and openly cackles. Lena says, “you know I mean that with all my love, Amé,” and Amélie huffs.

“I wanted a Denelli but she wouldn't let me buy one.”

“I’m teaching her to see the beauty in affordability,” Lena stage-whispers.

“Alright,” Lucio announces once he's done. He picks himself up and stretches and drops the screwdriver into Lena's dusty toolbox. “That’s good. Yep, we're good.”

“Thank you, Lucio,” Amélie says sincerely.

“It’s no big deal,” Lucio dismisses with his boyish little smile and boyish little wave of his hand. Lena has started arranging Amélie's things on the shelf and Amélie crouches to help. When they pick up the same book at the same time, it's the most ridiculous, utterly gay moment that Amélie makes a face and Lena sticks her tongue out at her through a giggle.

Behind them, Lucio is saying _I'll get this down to the truck_ and Angela is telling him _oh, will you? Thanks, Lucio_. Hana is chewing like a rabid child and is smushing her feet all over the cushions, bored. She's going to get Doritos and Doritos gremlin germs all over them. 

“Want to go to the beach today?” Lena asks before Amélie could tell Hana to get off the couch. She's squeezed Barthes in with Neruda and Amélie clicks her tongue, pulling the book out to fit it with the other B's, eyebrows screwed. 

“The beach? Me? In the summer?”

“A chance to wear that bikini you got at the back of our closet.” Clearly, Lena is appealing to vanity. Clearly, she knows Amélie well. “We’ll bring an umbrella. And a buttload of sunscreen.”

“The beach, me, in the summer,” Amélie repeats flatly. She's thinking about it, though sweat's already pooling at the back of her neck from the heat and it's as uncomfortable as it annoying. She chances a glance at the sunny sky out on the balcony briefly.

“Will it be… really bad?”

Amélie ponders that. Turns to Angela who's already halfway out of the apartment to ask, “a load of sun wouldn't hurt me, would it?”

Surprised, Angela pauses to blink. “Sun’s good for everyone. For you, just not too much.”

“Wanna go to the beach?” Lena pipes up.

Angela says something like _yes_ but it's drowned by Hana's cheering of _oh my God yes finally some activity thank you._ Amélie is about to tell her off on the couch thing again when— 

“ _Hey, doc! I'm heading down!_ ”

“Be right there!” Angela shouts after Lucio. Hana scrambles out of the apartment like a Doritos-drugged golden retriever, darting right past Angela. Thank goodness for that. “Beach, then?”

Lena turns to Amélie in inquiry. To answer, Amélie waves a hand at Angela. “Ask Fareeha and the others if they'd like to come, too.”

“I'm bringing a huge umbrella and the strongest sunscreen I got,” Lena chirps as Angela sets off. Amélie gives her a smile: quirk-browed, narrow-eyed.

“Why don't you tell the sun to go away too while you're at it?”

Lena laughs and puffs out her chest, shoving yet another book into where it doesn't belong. Amélie fixes that. “I might try that. I’ve always got you. For you, anything.”

Amélie feels herself smile. Feels something soft and warm crawl from her belly to her neck, a miniature sun under cold skin, as alive and as bright as the season she so hates, the woman she so loves. She hums. “I'm counting on that.” 

 

* * *

 

_autumn_

_***_

  
Warmth oozes from the underside of Tracer's accelerator to her stomach, her thighs, seeping through her jumpsuit. It makes her shiver in all its heat, in all its white-hot, painful leak. She clutches her diaphragm.

This place was a peaceful Surrey street once. Just people walking their dogs and children on the pavement, sunlight feeble through gray English clouds. Now it's a hellhole of bullet cases and explosions and the hoots of the Talon agents on the other side of the barrier, firing with vicious abandon. Tracer shakes out her hand and blood splatters on the stray, brown leaves on the ground.

“ _Tracer, hang on, I'm blocked off. Are you there? Tracer—_ ”

“Here, Mercy. M'fine,” Tracer grinds out. A bullet pings above her head and she flinches away from the powder of shattered concrete. She hunkers lower. “Just—just do what you gotta, I can hold up here, don't you worry!”

“ _You know you can't and don't you try to!_ ”

“They’re advancing. They're gonna get through!”

Soldier rumbles on the line. “ _Tracer, don't you dare—_ ”

“Gotta go!” Tracer shuts off the comms, flips her pistols, and breathes twice through her mouth. It hurts, bloody hell does it _hurt_ , but she has to hold the perimeter because Torbjorn's knocked out and she can't let these bastards through.

She springs up from the barrier—it hurts even more when another shot pierces the side of her ribs and another lances through her bicep. She shouts, keeps her eyes open to see one-two-three hostiles fall the ground but not long enough to spot one more hurling a grenade.

The neighborhood sizzles out to a blur of trees-concrete-smoke. She falls flat on her back and cries out, tears coming to her eyes. She clutches her midsection, bleeds on the concrete and dried leaves, ears ringing, vision smeared, rust and gunpowder on her tongue. 

A sharper blast joins the enemy gunfire, followed by another, _another_ —Widowmaker arrives in a flicker of purple and the deepest scowl. She slinks over to Tracer and grunts and she. Is. _Pissed_.

Tracer whines. In protest, more than anything. “Your post!” she gasps. Widowmaker looks at her and bares her teeth.

“Fuck my post.”

She poises her rifle atop the barrier and shoots. Tracer can only barely make out the steady dimming of the shooting from the other side, bodies falling and falling and weapons clattering. Widowmaker growls, once, when a shot grazes the side of her head and her visor cracks like a brittle shell. She's had enough of that then: she thrusts her arm forward and deploys a venom mine. When it explodes and the remnants of the hostile force scream and choke, she darts to Tracer's side.

“Is it bad?” Tracer whimpers, spread on the concrete, breathing hard and heavy. Widowmaker picks her up by the arm. “Amé, the accelerator, does it look bad?”

“No.” Tracer can't tell if she's lying. Widowmaker's face is as hard a scowl as when she arrived. “You’re fine.”

“Torbjorn,” Tracer gasps with alarm, and Widowmaker pulls back to haul him up, too. Her face is stiff. She trembles under both their weight but she says nothing. “Take him first, he needs to medical attention—”

“ _You_ need medical attention,” Widowmaker grits. She takes a deep breath and lugs forward, shaking just a little beneath the two of them.

“Amé,” Tracer murmurs. She huffs, sucks a fierce breath through her teeth and holds it. “oh, _nuh_ , that hurts.”

“I’ve got you,” Widowmaker replies. Her voice is softer, face slacker, frightened now more than angry. Tracer can't bring herself to be absolutely certain that she sees Widowmaker's lip wobble because her vision is warping, shivering: kaleidoscope. “You’ll be alright. I've always got you.”

“I know—”

“ _I’ve got them. Bringing them to Mercy now, have Hanzo take over my post,_ ” Widowmaker says into the comms. To Tracer, “ _don’t do that again,_ ” she growls. She looks at Tracer now and her face is crumpled in a scowl. Still: frightened more than angry. “Don’t try to take anything like that on by yourself again. You call for me.”

A leaf crunches under Tracer's foot. She sees droplets of red on the tip of her shoes when she bends to look. “I will,” she whispers. Widowmaker lets out a breath like exasperation. Or maybe relief. Maybe both. Through it all Tracer finds the gall to smile and it’s surely out of relief. Surely happiness. Surely both. “Yeah, love, I’ll call for you.”

“You better, you idiot.”

“Mm. I promise.” 

 

* * *

 

_winter_

_***_

  
“ _Lena!_ ”

“Oi— _yeah_ , yeah! Kitchen, hang on!”

Lena's rifling a cupboard when Amélie shuffles into the kitchen. Up on the tips of her toes, looking for _that damn salt shaker, where the fuck, oh bloody hell_ with the utmost urgency that she very nearly drops the sugar jar. Amélie clears her throat and Lena whips around so fast Amélie flashes back, for a moment, to a time when so quick a spin meant a kick to the face closely following.

Lena looks scandalized, “ _oi!_ What're you doing up? You should be in bed!” and brandishes her ladle. “Get back to bed!”

Amélie grumbles. “I am not a disabled, Lena, put the ladle away.” She pushes past Lena and peeks into the pot on the stove, squints at the simmering concoction of floating meaty bits and vegetables. “Is this chicken soup?”

“It is—seriously, love, go back to bed. Lemme take care of this—”

Amélie wrenches open the other cupboard and takes out the salt shaker. Lena maintains her puppy-eyed scowl. “Salt.” Amélie shows her the shaker. When Lena tries to take it, she snatches it from reach and turns back to the pot. “Are you sure you’re cooking this right?”

“I know what I'm doing, now get back to bed before your eyes pop or sommat—”

“I have a _fever_ ,” Amélie supplies flatly.

“ _Yes_ , but Angela did say your _anatomy's_ all different and we can't really be sure how well it'll react to things like this. You know how you don't like hot stuff—”

“I like you, how's that for hot stuff—”

“ _What I mean is,_ ” Lena grunts in exasperation, stealing the salt shaker from Amélie to point it at her like a weapon, “you just lie down and rest and let me take care of you, alright?”

Amélie blinks at the salt shaker, cross-eyed. Lena shakes it and Amélie eventually sighs, shoulders drooping. “Very well. Can I at least just sit? Here?” She waves to the breakfast counter. “At least if my eyes pop here the rags are just within reach.”

“ _Haha_ —won’t be very funny if it actually happens, love.”

Amélie looks to the ceiling, hobbles off, plops down on a stool, and sulks. Lena turns her nose up in satisfaction and proceeds with the cooking. One eye on her tablet, propped up on the microwave displaying a page titled _EASY CHICKEN SOUP RECIPE_ and the other on the pot.

The scene on the balcony is gray: the snowfall stopped around 11 last night but the weather forecast this morning said to expect heavier snow come tonight. The usual racket of honking cars down the street is absent. People must be in their homes, enjoying the cold, huddled up in blankets with cocoa. Or maybe they're sick, too, and their eyes are about to pop and their partners are cooking chicken soup.

Mm. That's a rather a nice image, actually.

Lena is sprinkling salt into the pot. Her whole body seems to move with every rock of the shaker because that's just Lena, always on the move, sunburst energy from the first strand of her hair to the last of her toes. Amélie smiles.

“It’s almost a year now, no?”

“Huh?” Lena is squinting at her tablet, stirring the soup.

“Almost a year. Since I moved in.”

Lena looks over her shoulder at Amélie, smiling with her quirked brows and the faint dimple on her chin. “Feel like moving out now?” she teases. 

“You sound like you want me out of your hair.”

“I do, in fact, want you out of my hair and back in bed.”

“Can’t properly have soup in bed,” Amélie counters airily. Lena throws her a feigned stink eye over her shoulder and huffs, shrugging.

“Fair point. So then stay.”

Amélie hums. Lena stirs the soup patiently. Slow. Sure. Consistent. Fancy work and such. Amélie looks at the sky through the glass balcony door, slid closed, cloudy with frost. From spring to winter and again and again: “I certainly will.”


	6. family; anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot i had a thing for when i have writer's block :')

_family_

_***_

 

He's a small bundle of maybe four or five years, mop of dark hair whipping with the breeze and his exertions both. Lena couldn't hear his voice from where she is, but she imagines it's as sunspot bright as the rest of him.

She tilts her head with amusement at his motions, smiling at him. With him. He runs along the space before the Trevi Fountain and his mother, Lena figures, is as exasperated as she is thrilled at the excitement of her little boy.

“Do you think,” she hears later, “we could start a family?”

She turns her head slowly and allows herself the lag to process that. Amélie's gaze is willed forward—toward the Palazzo Poli, the fountain, maybe even the little boy. Tourists mill about and Lena worries her fingers on the knob of her bomber jacket's zipper. The accelerator hums underneath.

Amélie says nothing more and the question starts to linger like a putrid smell, invading, insisting. Lena sniffs, turns to watch the boy again.

She's never thought about it before, really. Has been far too busy to think about little ones, or growing old, or if the accelerator and her condition would even allow any of this. Now's a good time as any, she supposes.

(Amélie's probably already thought about this before, though. She's been married once after all. She came—close.)

“I don't know,” Lena says pensively. She looks sidelong at Amélie and grinds the heel of her shoes on the pavement like she grinds out the next thing: “do  _you?_ ”

Amélie rolls her lips into her mouth. Hums. It’s noon and the sun is at its highest in the expanse of Rome’s sky. Shadows curl in the faint indents of Amélie’s laugh lines. “How hard could it be?”

Questions of biology notwithstanding, probably:  _very_. Lena blinks. Amélie turns her head and the shadows sitting on the lines of her face slide away, and Lena is stolen one breath: granted one rare view of vulnerability when Amélie's eyes flick just a little to the side, avoiding contact for once.

“You don't think we're too broken for that?” Lena asks before she could stop herself. She casts her eyes elsewhere after. Shame colors her neck and makes her wring her hands.

It would be hard, wouldn't it? Not to mention inconsiderate for any child to grow up in a magazine of a household with far more issues than yesterday's tabloid. It can't be two who are afraid of the dark—can’t be two who are scared of monsters that could come and snatch them away in their sleep. Lena's knee bounces and she flick-flick-flicks her jacket's zipper to the tune of slow-creeping anxiety. She's almost sure Amélie would drop it (and her, she'd apologize, when she's finished beating the shite out of herself for that hideous remark) but Amélie surprises her.

“I imagine it would be… difficult,” Amélie says quietly. When Lena looks, she only finds her thoughtfully watching the boy toss coins into the fountain.

Lena turns to watch him, too. What could he be wishing for, she finds herself wondering.

“We’ve…” she loosens her hands, “done difficult before, I guess, haven't we?”

Amélie doesn't get to answer that one immediately because over at the fountain, the boy reaches for the water. His stance is delighted, fascinated,  _precarious_  as he stares at something on the water. Gravity does its thing—he leans too far in and his arms pinwheel, his body keens, and his mother, yelp-shrieking, charges forward to snatch him back.

“ _Oh!_ ” they intone in unison. Lena's, loud. Amélie's, softer.

And Lena sees it, at that moment. A wee thing with all her headstrong fire and all of Amélie's measured patience, academic prowess in one hand and finesse talents in the other. Lena will teach them all she knows of the world and what's up there in the sky, and Amélie will teach them to love the arts and all the beauty one insignificant body could make here on the ground.

They'll know to feel both warmth and cold and let them into their bones to make them part of who they are. They'll know what it's like to be a hero, to be a survivor, to believe that no matter how low and far and gone you go, something can always bring you back. They'll know kindness and love.

“Oh,” Lena says again when the boy has come down from the fountain ledge dry and, would you believe it, absolutely beaming. For the first time since the question was asked, she smiles. And then she laughs.

Hey, why not. Winston's constructed bigger things out of old, worn, broken parts. Amélie could make a fine meal out of leftovers and salvageable bits of edible chunk. Lena's rebuilt herself many times from the atom up.

Amélie huffs and turns her nose up, glaring at the little boy, but in a second, her expression molds soft.

Mm. They  _have_  done difficult before, haven't they?

“A’ight, love,” Lena chirps as she jumps to her feet. Amélie looks puzzled but Lena's proffered hand just waggles its fingers and insists. “Come on up, now.”

“We can't leave—”

“Oh, can it, we won't go far.”

Amélie's face scrunches but she ultimately stands up. With a scoff, no less.

When Lena takes her to the fountain and starts rummaging her own pockets for coins, well, she scoffs a little louder.

“Don't be such a grump. It won't do us any harm, yeah?” Lena chides with a giggle and a victorious flourish of two coins. Amélie takes the one meant for her with a shake of her head, murmuring something along the lines of  _children_  and  _fairytales_.

She still tosses it into the fountain, though. And, or at least Lena can only hope, she still makes a wish. Their coins plop into the water. A breeze tickles the space behind Lena's earlobes like some higher being's whisper of  _wish granted_ , or maybe even  _not yet_. She still smiles. Amélie quirks a brow at her.

“What did you wish for?”

“What did  _you_  wish for?” Lena croons with pumping brows. Amélie crosses her arms, narrows her eyes, and makes it  _very_  clear she won't tell.

Lena likes to think she knows, though. Likes to think they wished for the same thing. She grins, and Amélie's lips twitch.

Right then, a buzz sounds up in Lena's ear and even Amélie visibly stiffens, coolly playing off activating her comm by swiping at her hair.

“ _Talon aircrafts now inbound to Trevi. Everyone move. Symmetra and Genji, Widowmaker and Tracer. Be sure to get everyone out of the streets!_ ”

“Aye-aye, Soldier sir,” Lena quips. She tears off her jacket the same time Amélie starts to shed her too-bulky coat. The switches of Amélie's bracelets click in the same fluid motion and in this generous Roman sun, the purple of her skin shines a light kind of lavender.

“I’ll round them up,” Amélie supplies.  _Widowmaker_  now as she hefts her rifle skyward, primed for sniper fire. Tracer’s own accelerator glows blue and hums its own little warm up. People have already started to gape at the two them. “You take them away.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Widowmaker shoots at the sky once, twice, and bellows, stoically, as people stare horrified at them, “it’s not safe here. If you value your lives, you will listen.”

“She means that in a  _nice_ ,  _heroic_  way!” Tracer amends quickly while frantically waving her arms. She grins for what it's worth, elbows Widowmaker as she blinks past—they really need to work on those people skills. “Come on, lovelies. In a couple minutes this place'll be none too fancy and you'll be plenty relieved you got out of here!”

“I’ll see you at home,” Widowmaker says as she arms her graphook. Tracer salutes and yells after her as she zips away.

“We’ll talk more about it when we're back!”

Widowmaker's laughter is rich and full in the comms. Tracer grins, ready. 

 

* * *

 

_anything_

_***_

 

They've always been the subtle kind of sweet, no matter what Hana has to say about their hand holding and surreptitious kisses. Certainly, they're not much for grand gestures. Grand gestures usually mean smoke in the kitchen and soot on Lena's face, and a very grumpy Soldier lecturing Amélie on how it's not nice to threaten to maim people, horrible with instructions as they may be.

They're more, Amélie bearing the sun's heat to watch Lena beat (or get beaten by, that always gets her sulking) Genji on sprints on the watchpoint field, parasol over her head and her lover's favorite brand of energy drink on her knee. More, paying for closet renovations to better accommodate both their clothes and the startling collection of Amélie's designer heels. Swinging by souvenir shops when out on assignments, little keychains that look good on Lena's backpacks or matches the color of Amélie's eyes. Sitting through an absurd sci-fi action movie, or some obscure foreign language film. Writing a grocery list with all of Lena's favorite munchies and Lena memorizing (oh, even learning to pronounce) Amélie's brands of toiletries and beauty cremes for when she's the one with the time to do some shopping.

These days, Amélie thinks about Lena's happy eyes and grateful smiles more than she does Gabriel's teasing snickers and Sombra's squinty looks.

Right now, though, Widowmaker really can't think of anything at all.

The explosion jars both the comm line and the concrete underfoot—that they're levels above is saying a lot. The building across from her perch trembles and the windows of one particular floor shatter outward in a burst of supernova fire. She watches through her scope as the shapes of McCree and Mercy fling out—they freefall until McCree finds his handling on a ledge and is able to snatch Mercy's wrist. They dangle.

Another explosion, another shape: Tracer's bright yellow blob sails out and then down.

Widowmaker waits. Tracer is not recalling. The ground is 20 floors down.

She turns off her comm because everyone has started shouting and she, frankly, doesn't need that kind of panic right now.

Her graphook shoots forth with a fierce hiss. The wind slaps her face around as she jumps off of her perch and lets herself be yanked forward like a ragdoll by her graphook line. Her jaw clenches. Her eyeballs sting with the force of the wind. Tracer spots her coming and spins around to meet her properly mid-air. 

They collide the way cars in vehicular accidents do: one big, painful  _slam_. Tracer's accelerator stabs into one breast and Widowmaker's eyes water. Widowmaker's mouth knocks Tracer's forehead and she thinks she whimpers. Their legs jackknife and tangle. Widowmaker wraps all of herself protectively around her partner as the graphook disengages and they freefall, arcing downward.

It's wildly convenient that there are dumpsters just on this side of the building.

She spins them around and lets her back take the brunt of the impact—her spine is artificial and replaceable, anyway. It doesn't quite prevent her lungs from compressing and her breath to come out of her in a huge cough, though. Rubbish flutters up around them—she is very sure that's spoiled food she can smell and something disgustingly cold and squishy pressing up against her cheek.

Pins and needles crawl across her limbs and back. She is very afraid to inhale and very much does not care at all that their teammates are howling success and congratulations in the comms when she turns hers back on.

Tracer is motionless above her. Probably as terrified to move in all this garbage as she is.

(Widowmaker allows herself one much needed, deep breath and instantly regrets it. She gags at the stench.)

The cold, squishy thing on Widowmaker's cheek follows when she moves her head. It's— _stuck_. Most of the smell is coming from it, she realizes. She gags. 

Tracer's accelerator beeps a beep of full charge.

“I think,” Widowmaker says to it, strained, “it’s a little too late for that.”

Tracer laughs. So hard that her body heaves against Widowmaker's and the garbage around them vibrates and she gags a little, once in a while, because of her swooping inhales but she can't help her laughter.

Inching up, she drops a kiss on the corner of Widowmaker's mouth and laughs again, tears starting to run down her face, her eyes the shine of polished mica.

As much as Widowmaker—Amélie, doesn't want to, she feels herself smile. For those happy eyes and that grateful smile, she'll do anything. 


End file.
